{"id":730671,"date":"2026-06-28T07:33:34","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T07:33:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/730671\/"},"modified":"2026-06-28T07:33:34","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T07:33:34","slug":"csu-rams-ad-asks-congress-not-to-block-potential-move-to-big-12-acc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/730671\/","title":{"rendered":"CSU Rams AD asks Congress not to block potential move to Big 12, ACC"},"content":{"rendered":"

FORT COLLINS \u2014 John Weber is loving CSU\u2019s move<\/a> to the Pac-12\u2019s neighborhood<\/a> Wednesday. The idea of the Big 12<\/a> and\u00a0the ACC\u00a0becoming<\/a>\u00a0gated communities?<\/a> Yeah, not so much.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes no sense to me to make, at this point in time, a decision that no one can ascend or descend,\u201d the Rams athletic director told The Denver Post recently. \u201cThat\u2019s irresponsible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Our conversation had turned to the Protect College Sports Act, which could soon be up for a vote in the Senate. And, specifically, its impact on \u201cGroup of 6\u201d schools such as CSU.<\/a><\/p>\n

Weber likes a lot of what\u2019s in the bill. Save for Section 205. If the Protect College Sports Act becomes law, it could lock in conference membership at the highest level of college sports as is. The musical chairs at the top of the NCAA food chain would come to a screeching halt.<\/p>\n

Section 205 of the Protect College Sports Act, as written, prohibits collegiate conferences that generate at least $700 million in revenue from merging with one another or adding new members.<\/p>\n

The Big 12, ACC, SEC and Big Ten are all expected to meet or exceed that benchmark in the\u00a0 \u201925-26 fiscal year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at the attributes of (our) university as a whole \u2014 34,000 students, 277,000-plus alumni, strong academics, tier-1 (Carnegie Classification) research institution<\/a>, great college town, great facilities, all that stuff,\u201d Weber stressed. \u201cWe look just like a Big 12 school. That\u2019s exactly (a) Big 12 school, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

If not, it\u2019s pretty darned close.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we have to consistently deliver better on the athletics leg of that stool,\u201d Weber said. \u201cBut it\u2019s certainly something that we want to make sure we keep in our sights. And we continue to work toward the opportunity (that\u2019s) there for CSU to ascend.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ColoradoColorado State athletic director John Weber along the sidelines in the fourth quarter against the Washington State Cougars at Canvas Stadium in Fort Collins on Saturday, Sept. 27, 2025. (Photo by Andy Cross\/The Denver Post)<\/p>\n

Weber\u2019s not trying to stick the Rammies\u2019 cart before any horses, just to be clear. He\u2019s just learned, post-COVID-19 pandemic, that universities would be nuts to burn any bridge with a bigger payout on the other side of the gorge.<\/a><\/p>\n

CSU isn\u2019t exactly walking gingerly into its Pac-12 phase on Wednesday, either. Jim Mora, plucked from a successful run at UConn, is now the highest-paid coach in the newly reconfigured conference ($2.4 million), with higher expectations to match. Canvas Stadium is getting a new rug for the first time in about seven years. Moby Arena has a new court coming. Last month, during the university\u2019s annual \u201cDay of Giving,\u201d athletics raised $1.5 million in donations over 24 hours. Weber said his first \u201cGiving\u201d two years ago brought in $67,000.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere have been some things that maybe somewhat quietly, maybe some not somewhat quietly, (that) are, I think, pointing towards some real momentum,\u201d Weber said.<\/p>\n

Including, he added, his new league.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe huge thing that\u2019s going to help us going into the Pac 12 (is that) every single one of our games is on linear (platforms),\u201d the CSU administrator said. \u201cThat\u2019s massive \u2026 the opportunity for us to compete and have people watch us, that\u2019s where the value comes \u2026 eyeballs matter.\u201d
Rivalries matter, too, even with television networks pulling the strings for college sports behind the scenes and chucking geography out a sixth-story window. Weber made a point of preserving the Wyoming series as a non-conference enterprise, but Air Force looks to be in the rearview mirror. And we\u2019re still three years away (2029) from a renewal of the Rocky Mountain Showdown with CU.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know (Buffs athletic director) Fernando (Lovo), actually, from (his time at) New Mexico,<\/a>\u201d Weber said of the new CU boss. \u201cWe have not had a conversation around the future of the Showdown \u2026 we\u2019ve talked about other things, we haven\u2019t talked about that yet \u2026 It\u2019s not a, \u2018No\u2019, it\u2019s not a, \u2018I\u2019m not interested.\u2019 Literally, we just haven\u2019t talked about it yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ColoradoColorado State Rams fans before the Rocky Mountain Showdown against the Colorado Buffaloes at Canvas Stadium in Fort Collins on Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (Photo by Andy Cross\/The Denver Post)<\/p>\n

In the meantime, he\u2019s hoping the conversations in Washington continue about Section 205 of the Protect College Sports Act.<\/p>\n

\u201c(We\u2019re) serious about the work that we\u2019re doing. We\u2019re serious about our move to the Pac 12. We\u2019re serious about the future of the Pac 12,\u201d Weber said. \u201c(But) if you lock in membership there \u2014 that is, I think, problematic for a whole lot of people. There are members in those conferences that are not there by intent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Realignment since 2021 has made for strange bedfellows all over the map \u2014 the four former Pac-12 powers snatched up by the Big Ten; Stanford and Cal, bastions of the Bay, in the Atlantic Coast Conference.<\/p>\n

Yet the new Pac-12 is a particularly curious marriage of oddball brethren.<\/p>\n

The football membership, in particular, is rooted in provincial programs that were snubbed by the Big Ten, Big 12 or ACC (Washington State and Oregon State) during their latest acquisition phase, or \u201cbig\u201d mid-majors (Boise State, Fresno State, CSU) that never quite made the cut to join the big boys, despite repeated pitches.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat sort of an approach (in Section 205) has the possibility of harming what really is our core mission of higher education,\u201d Weber continued. \u201cIt\u2019s groundbreaking research, and it\u2019s educating our youth. And if we look at it through that lens, if you are consolidating athletic, and therefore marketing, power within a relative few, it\u2019s not unreasonable to think that you could be challenging the educational research missions of a whole lot of schools, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

Although 205 at present feels more specifically targeted at the largest football brands in the ACC (Clemson, Miami, North Carolina), several of which have been, or will be, on the radar as potential SEC or Big Ten additions. Let\u2019s put it this way: If the Buffs got an offer to join the Big Ten next week, you couldn\u2019t get them to Columbus or Ann Arbor quick enough.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, the so-called lesser schools in the Big Ten and SEC \u2014 think Minnesota, Ole Miss, Purdue, Vandy, Northwestern, etc. \u2014 see the Protect College Sports Act as a means to keep their powerful leagues intact. Sources told Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports recently that those conferences want provisions in the act that prevent an outside entity or broadcaster from cherry-picking the most-watched college football brands to form a national Super League or College Premier League. (An arrangement that might be beneficial for, say, CU and North Carolina, who hired \u201cviral\u201d coaches in Deion Sanders and Bill Belichick, in part, to enhance their television appeal.)<\/p>\n

\u201cOur opportunity to compete at the (FBS) level enables our ability to attract more people to CSU,\u201d Weber noted. \u201c\u2018People\u2019 includes students, it includes faculty, includes a lot of people that make this enterprise go. And (the Protect College Sports Act) is going to be incredibly important to not just CSU, but a whole bunch of schools that would be in that bucket.\u201d<\/p>\n

Want more sports news? Sign up for the Sports Omelette to get all our analysis on Denver\u2019s teams.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT COLLINS \u2014 John Weber is loving CSU\u2019s move to the Pac-12\u2019s neighborhood Wednesday. The idea of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":730672,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[19472,55944,24319,7025,16903,5695,1607,2662,74183,78573,1340,20734,14577,84913,1601,1840,526,399,56865,50345,70438,2558,6429,398,396,397,3828,2256,2232,5357,12819,8674,1728,314692,8223,7702,720,99,362,189719,1505,15857,2002,3314],"class_list":["post-730671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-air-force","tag-big-12","tag-big-ten","tag-bill-belichick","tag-boise-state","tag-clemson","tag-college-football","tag-college-sports","tag-colorado-state","tag-colorado-state-football","tag-congress","tag-covid","tag-csu","tag-csu-rams","tag-deion-sanders","tag-denver","tag-education","tag-football","tag-fort-collins","tag-fresno","tag-jim-mora","tag-latest-headlines","tag-minnesota","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-new-mexico","tag-north-carolina","tag-oregon","tag-oregon-state","tag-pac-12","tag-purdue","tag-research","tag-rocky-mountain-showdown","tag-sean-keeler","tag-sec","tag-senate","tag-sports","tag-sports-columnists","tag-super-league","tag-television","tag-uconn","tag-washington","tag-wyoming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=730671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/730672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=730671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=730671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=730671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}